A catastrophic water shortage could prove an even bigger threat to mankind this century than soaring food prices and the relentless exhaustion of energy reserves, according to a panel of global experts at the Goldman Sachs "Top Five Risks" conference.
Nicholas (Lord) Stern, author of the Government's Stern Review on the economics of climate change, warned that underground aquifers could run dry at the same time as melting glaciers play havoc with fresh supplies of usable water.
"The glaciers on the Himalayas are retreating, and they are the sponge that holds the water back in the rainy season. We're facing the risk of extreme run-off, with water running straight into the Bay of Bengal and taking a lot of topsoil with it," he said.
"A few hundred square miles of the Himalayas are the source for all the major rivers of Asia - the Ganges, the Yellow River, the Yangtze - where 3bn people live. That's almost half the world's population," he said.
_________________ "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."
-Friedrich von Schiller
"Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."
John Kenneth Galbraith
Water authorities and other government agencies scattered throughout the state, including here in sprawling Riverside County, east of Los Angeles, have begun denying, delaying or challenging authorization for dozens of housing tracts and other developments under a state law that requires a 20-year water supply as a condition for building.
California officials suggested that the actions were only the beginning, and they worry about the impact on a state that has grown into an economic powerhouse over the last several decades.
The state law was enacted in 2001, but until statewide water shortages, it had not been invoked to hold up projects.
While previous droughts and supply problems have led to severe water cutbacks and rationing, water officials said the outright refusal to sign off on projects over water scarcity had until now been virtually unheard of on a statewide scale.
“Businesses are telling us that they can’t get things done because of water,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, said in a telephone interview.
On Wednesday, Mr. Schwarzenegger declared an official statewide drought, the first such designation since 1991. As the governor was making his drought announcement, the Eastern Municipal Water District in Riverside County — one of the fastest-growing counties in the state in recent years — gave a provisional nod to nine projects that it had held up for months because of water concerns. The approval came with the caveat that the water district could revisit its decision, and only after adjustments had been made to the plans to reduce water demand.
“The statement that we’re making is that this isn’t business as usual,” said Randy A. Record, a water district board member, at the meeting here in Perris.
Shawn Jenkins, a developer who had two projects caught up in the delays, said he was accustomed to piles of paperwork and reams of red tape in getting projects approved. But he was not prepared to have the water district hold up the projects he was planning. He changed the projects’ landscaping, to make it less water dependent, as the board pondered their fate.
_________________ "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."
-Friedrich von Schiller
"Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."
John Kenneth Galbraith
All OF does is take a local rainy spell somewhere and equate that with "Global Water Problem Solved" regardless of what the big reports say. Funny, he uses the same fallacious technique with oil production.
Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 1140 Location: Seattle
Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 9:13 pm Post subject: Re: Spreading Decline of Potable Water Thread
Homesteader wrote:
All OF does is take a local rainy spell somewhere and equate that with "Global Water Problem Solved" regardless of what the big reports say. Funny, he uses the same fallacious technique with oil production.
All Homesteader does is take a local dry spell somewhere and equate that with "Global Water Disaster Looming" regardless of what the big reports say. Funny, he/she uses the same fallacious technique with oil production. _________________ Abundance - what a concept!
Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 1140 Location: Seattle
Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 9:15 pm Post subject: Re: Spreading Decline of Potable Water Thread
Meanwhile, no water problems in the Northwest, either. And not even any snowpack problems!
--> LINK <--
Quote:
Monday, June 9, 2008
Heavy snow forecast for Cascades
By Jackson Holtz Herald Writer
A heavy snow warning is in effect for the Cascade mountains tonight with up to a foot of new snow expected, forecasters said.
The National Weather Service in Seattle issued the warning as snow levels are expected to drop to 2,500 feet tonight.
A strong, late-season cold front is predicted to move through the area bringing winter-like conditions just two weeks before summer officially begins.
In the lowlands, rain and colder-than-normal temperatures are predicted through Wednesday, the weather service said.
More seasonal temperatures are forecast to return to the area on Thursday with partly sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-60s.
Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 9:46 pm Post subject: Re: Spreading Decline of Potable Water Thread
It's June and it feels like March....I'll take it! Water is life!
catbox _________________ President Bush: “There’s no question about it. Wall Street got drunk—that’s one of the reasons I asked you to turn off the TV cameras. It got drunk, and now it’s got a hangover."
Climate change, overconsumption and the alarmingly inefficient use of this most basic raw material are all to blame. I wrote a book three years ago titled When The Rivers Run Dry. It probed why the Yellow River in China, the Rio Grande and Colorado in the United States, the Nile in Egypt, the Indus in Pakistan, the Amu Darya in Central Asia, and many others are all running on empty. The confident blue lines in a million atlases simply do not tell the truth about rivers sucked dry, for the most part, to irrigate food crops.
We are using these rivers to death. And we are also pumping out underground water reserves almost everywhere in the world. With two-thirds of the water abstracted from nature going to irrigate crops -- a figure that rises above 90 percent in many arid countries -- water shortages equal food shortages.
Consider the two underlying causes of the current crisis over world food prices: falling supplies from some of the major agricultural regions that supply world markets, and rising demand in booming economies like China and India.
_________________ "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."
-Friedrich von Schiller
"Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."
John Kenneth Galbraith
Climate change, overconsumption and the alarmingly inefficient use of this most basic raw material are all to blame. I wrote a book three years ago titled When The Rivers Run Dry. It probed why the Yellow River in China, the Rio Grande and Colorado in the United States, the Nile in Egypt, the Indus in Pakistan, the Amu Darya in Central Asia, and many others are all running on empty. The confident blue lines in a million atlases simply do not tell the truth about rivers sucked dry, for the most part, to irrigate food crops.
We are using these rivers to death. And we are also pumping out underground water reserves almost everywhere in the world. With two-thirds of the water abstracted from nature going to irrigate crops -- a figure that rises above 90 percent in many arid countries -- water shortages equal food shortages.
(...)
Peak Water is MUCH MORE SCARY than Peak Oil.
I'm not willing to kill for oil and will probably feel "dirty" if I do.
I'm willing to kill efficiently for water and feel ALIVE! _________________ anagami.net
Joined: May 27, 2007 Posts: 1433 Location: The Post Peak Oil Historian
Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 8:37 pm Post subject: Re: Spreading Decline of Potable Water Thread
"A few hundred square miles of the Himalayas are the source for all the major rivers of Asia - the Ganges, the Yellow River, the Yangtze - where 3bn people live. That's almost half the world's population," he said.
I agree, water scarcity is a major problem, already existing, that's about to become as much responsible as famine for the death of billions. When the glaciers are gone from the Himalayas, That part of the world won't support much in the way of a popluation.
Big Agriculture is largely responsible for funding the water scarcity deniers. The last thing they want is legislation that will limit their free access to the water from the aquifers and Great Lakes. _________________ Time to recognize there are only two classes of people; those that stole the wealth of America and those that got fleeced.
August 7, 2008
Monsoon delivering above-average rainfall
Mike Branom, Tribune
The 2008 monsoon season already has given the Valley an above-average amount of rainfall, and there's still plenty of time left on the clock.
Even more, the National Weather Service is predicting an active afternoon and evening for thunderstorms and showers on Thursday night.
Through Thursday morning, Phoenix's official gauge has recorded 2.78 inches of rain. In a typical monsoon season, which runs through mid-September, the total is 2.77 inches.
This is only the second year since 2000 the monsoon’s rain has come in above the climatological norm. In 2006, the total was 3.33 inches.
Southern Arizona also is seeing wetter-than-usual weather. All the recording stations monitored by the Weather Service's office in Tucson are showing seasonal totals above average.
Nogales has seen 8.96 inches of rain through Wednesday; that's more than 55 percent above the typical amount of precipitation.
The short-term forecast for the Valley calls for a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly before 11 p.m.
The main threat appears to be locally heavy rainfall, although the Weather Service warns an isolated severe, wet microburst is a possibility.
Monsoon season one of the wettest
Desert Sun Wire Services • August 10, 2008
The desert Southwest is having one of its wettest monsoon seasons on record, with frequent thunderstorms sweeping into Riverside County from Sonora and Arizona - and the show's not over, National Weather Service officials said in reports published today.
About halfway into this year's summer rain season, the Coachella Valley and other desert regions have been hit by more heavy downpours than usual, said meteorologist Tony Haffer at the NWS office in Phoenix, which looks after southeastern California.
Climate change and the subsequent acidification of the world's oceans will significantly reduce the successful fertilization of certain marine species by the year 2100, said the report by Australian and Swedish scientists.
"If you look at projected rates (of acidity) for the year 2100, we are finding a 25 percent reduction in fertilization," lead-scientist Jane Williamson from Macquarie University told Reuters on Friday.
"We were completely surprised because people had been looking at the effect of acidification on calcified structures of marine animals, but there was no evidence to suggest it was affecting non-calcified structures, like a sperm or an egg," she said.
The surface of the ocean absorbs up to 30 percent of the world's yearly emissions of carbon dioxide. Absorbed carbon dioxide forms a weak acid that is gradually increasing the acidity of the oceans.
The study of sea urchins around southeast Australia found a link between increased ocean acidity and a reduction in swimming speed and motility of sea urchin sperm.
The researchers measured sperm swimming speed, sperm motility, fertilization success and larval developmental success in sea urchins in normal seawater with a pH 8.1 and also in water with a pH 7.7, which is projected to be the level of acidification by 2100.
Acidification from carbon dioxide is another problem. The food isn't reproducing. _________________ Give anyone a lever long enough and they can change the world. It's unreliable levers that are the problem.
Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 1:21 pm Post subject: Re: Spreading Decline of Potable Water Thread
Cid_Yama wrote:
"A few hundred square miles of the Himalayas are the source for all the major rivers of Asia - the Ganges, the Yellow River, the Yangtze - where 3bn people live. That's almost half the world's population," he said.
I agree, water scarcity is a major problem, already existing, that's about to become as much responsible as famine for the death of billions. When the glaciers are gone from the Himalayas, That part of the world won't support much in the way of a popluation.
Big Agriculture is largely responsible for funding the water scarcity deniers. The last thing they want is legislation that will limit their free access to the water from the aquifers and Great Lakes.
Big agriculture feeds America. If you want to blame someone, blame all Americans.
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